Former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder has formally contested the finding of an investigator hired by Virginia Commonwealth University who concluded that he kissed a 20-year-old student without her consent.

The 88-year-old Democrat, who is a distinguished professor at the university’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government, accused the VCU office overseeing the investigation of “underlying bias.”

He said the reasoning of Jody Shipper, an outside attorney and investigator with expertise in federal civil rights law, is “unsound, biased and violates due process.”

He made the accusations in a 15-page document posted on his website and social media accounts Tuesday and submitted to VCU last week in response to Shipper’s findings.

Shipper found Wilder responsible for “non-consensual sexual contact” for kissing Sydney Black in 2017, according to a two-page summary of the investigation’s findings.

Black was a student and worked as an assistant at the Wilder School at the time of the incident. The report cleared Wilder of three other charges that were based on Black’s complaint: sexual exploitation, sex- or gender-based discrimination, and retaliation.

Because Wilder is contesting the finding of the investigator, the VCU Review Panel is expected to hold a hearing to determine whether the probe was conducted properly.

University spokesman Michael Porter declined to comment on the findings of the investigation or release Shipper’s full 262-page report, but he defended the university’s approach to allegations of sexual misconduct.

“VCU takes seriously any allegations of misconduct and all parties’ rights to a fair and impartial process that provides a full opportunity to be heard,” he said in a statement.

Black’s attorney, Jason V. Wolfrey, said he requested an extension to give Black until Aug. 2 to submit her response to Wilder’s document. Black believes Shipper was impartial, he said.

“She just wants it to be over,” he said. “She’s upset, but she’s also fired up a little now.”

The grandson of slaves, Wilder became the nation’s first elected African American governor and served from 1990 to 1994.

Black filed a complaint with VCU in December 2018, alleging that Wilder kissed her and made other overtures, including suggestions that she could live at his country house and join him on trips.

His first extensive public comments about the investigation, the document posted on Wilder’s website said Black’s “allegations are false, lack credibility and reflect glaring inconsistencies.”

It said she may have invented the story “to reap a financial reward from a respected, high-profile faculty member who might be more concerned with the appearance of impropriety [than] with the underlying truth.”

“While disappointed in the External Investigator’s findings and with growing concerns about the impartiality of the overall process, Wilder remains confident that the truth will [come] out,” the document said.

Wolfrey, Black’s attorney, said she never asked Wilder for money or to pay her bills and has no plans to file a lawsuit. She has asked VCU to forgive about $4,000 in tuition debt incurred after she filed the complaint and withdrew from classes, he said.

Much of the dispute stems from events on Feb. 16, 2017, when Wilder and Black dined together at the Boathouse, a riverfront restaurant in Richmond to celebrate her 20th birthday.

Black said Wilder invited her to dinner; Wilder said that dining together was “at best a mutual decision.”

Black has said Wilder bought her vodka martinis, knowing she was underage. Wilder denied that he intended to make her vulnerable to his advances. He also denied inviting her to spend a weekend with him in Atlanta.

Wilder pointed to inconsistencies between Black’s statements to Shipper and records and other interviews that he said were detailed in Shipper’s report.

Black said they went to his condo after dinner, where Wilder kissed her and touched her leg. But Wilder said Shipper’s report indicated Black told her roommate that Wilder merely tried to kiss her without mentioning the leg touch.

The roommate said Black told her about the incident only after the investigation began, Wilder said, quoting the report, but Black said she told the roommate the same night.

Black said she told her mother that Wilder tried to touch her leg but did not mention actual touching or a kiss, he said, citing the report.

Wilder also takes issue with the report’s description of phone calls between him and Black after the dinner.

He said Shipper concluded that he wouldn’t have called Black after the dinner “if there had not been some kind of precipitating event he felt required further discussion.”

Wilder said he would call Black only after she called or texted him asking for a call in return.

Wilder said the “deliberate and calculated” omission of these details about the nature and frequency of the calls is “indicative of bias and constitutes a gross violation of due process.”

Black has said Wilder invited her to his country home in Charles City, Va., to apologize for the kiss, but he said he allowed her to visit only “with the belief that doing so was merely a hospitable gesture.”

Although Black has said she “felt scared” to be alone with Wilder after he kissed her, Wilder said, “notwithstanding these claims,” she drove more than an hour to the home, knowing they would be alone.

“This is hardly the behavior of a young woman who had been previously sexually assaulted by the person she was meeting and of whom she claimed she was ‘scared,’ ” he said.

Wilder said Shipper relied on the “very same inconsistencies and behaviors” to find other allegations unfounded.

“No reasonable unbiased External Investigator, without a pre-existing agenda, armed with this information, would conclude that it was more likely than not that Wilder kissed Complainant and touched her leg,” the posting on his website said.

He asked what steps were taken to make sure VCU employees overseeing the investigation treated him fairly after a previous case in which Wilder accused a prominent VCU dean of harassing Wilder’s assistant, Angelica Bega.

Wilder also noted that Black reported the incident to the Richmond Police Department, which he said determined the allegations were unfounded. A police spokesman confirmed no charges were filed.